is a Japanese

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

-themed

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

series written and illustrated by

George Morikawa is a Japanese manga author known for the long-running series ''Hajime no Ippo.'' Born in Tokyo, Morikawa was inspired to become a manga artist upon reading Tetsuya Chiba's ''Harris no Kaze'' in elementary school. He was previously an assistan ...

. It has been serialized by

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' an ...

in the ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''

Weekly Shōnen Magazine is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published on Wednesdays in Japan by Kodansha, first published on March 17, 1959. The magazine is mainly read by an older audience, with a significant portion of its readership falling under the male high ...

'' since October 1989 and collected into 135 ''

tankōbon is the Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...

'' volumes as of July 2022. It follows the story of high school student Makunouchi Ippo, as he begins his career in boxing and over time obtains many titles and defeats various opponents. A 76-episode

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

adaptation produced by Madhouse aired on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...

from October 2000 to March 2002. A television film and an

original video animation , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

(OVA) were released in 2003. A second series titled '': New Challenger'' aired from January to June 2009. A third series '': Rising'' aired from October 2013 to March 2014. In North America, the first series, including the television film, was licensed by

Geneon (abbreviated as NBCUEJ) is a Japanese music, anime, and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise headquartered in Akasaka, Tokyo, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Minato, Tokyo. It is primarily involved in the production and distributi ...

in 2003, which released it under the name ''Fighting Spirit''. It was re-licensed by

Discotek Media Discotek Media is an American entertainment company based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, focused on distribution and licensing Japanese anime, films, and television series. Formed in 2005, Discotek primarily focuses on licensing retro titles fr ...

in 2020, including the television film and the OVA. As of December 2021, the manga had over 100 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series. In 1991, won the 15th

Kodansha Manga Award is an annual award for serialized manga published in the previous year, the event is sponsored by the publisher Kodansha. It is currently awarded in three categories: '' shōnen'', '' shōjo'', and general. The awards began in 1977, initially w ...

in the ''shōnen'' category.

Plot

Ippo Makunouchi is an extremely shy high school student, unable to make friends due to always being busy helping his mother run their family fishing charter business. Because he kept to himself, a group of bullies led by Umezawa got into the habit of picking on him. One day, when these bullies gave him a rather serious beating, a

middleweight Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to . Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

who was passing by stopped them and took the injured Ippo to the , owned by retired boxer Genji Kamogawa, to treat his wounds. After Ippo awoke to the sounds of boxers training, the boxer who saved him, Mamoru Takamura, tried to cheer Ippo up by letting him vent his frustrations on a sandbag. It was then that they had their first glimpse into Ippo's talent for boxing. After that incident, Ippo gave the situation a lot of thought and decided that he would like to begin a career as a professional boxer. When he conveys this message to Mamoru Takamura, he gets verbally reprimanded: Takamura thought Ippo was taking professional boxing too lightly. However, Takamura felt that he couldn't outright refuse Ippo, especially since his feat of punching the sandbag much harder than anybody else in the gym (except for Takamura). Therefore, he challenges Ippo to catch 10 falling leaves from a tree simultaneously after a week of training, fully convinced that Ippo would fail, Takamura jogs away as he continues his roadwork. However, after a week of tough training, involving nightly hours, Ippo manages the technique in the nick of time. He waits for the jogging Takamura to come by his usual path and surprises him by catching all 10 of the falling leaves and only doing so with his left hand. This impresses Takamura greatly, and he informs Ippo that the action required to catch all 10 leaves is called a boxing

jab A jab is a type of punch used in martial arts. Several variations of the jab exist, but every jab shares these characteristics: while in a fighting stance, the lead fist is thrown straight ahead and the arm is fully extended from the side of ...

. Takamura invites Ippo back to the boxing gym for introductions. When they got back to the gym, the coach, Genji Kamogawa, was not at all impressed by Makunouchi's lack of fighting spirit, and therefore, was challenged by Takamura to have a practice spar against a member of the gym. However, Kamogawa decides to give Ippo a severe challenge and tells him to spar with Miyata, who is 16, the same age as Ippo. Miyata is known as a boxing prodigy and is one of Kamogawa gym's future hopes. Takamura gets extremely worried with this prospect, as Miyata skill is way above the four-rounder pro boxer. As expected, Ippo loses by KO, but not until Miyata struggles dodging his punches and finally ends the match with his trump card: "The Counter". Coach Kamogawa decides that he has great fighting sense and spirit and decides to train him to eventually become the Japanese champion with a world ranking while Miyata became the OPBF ( Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation) Champion. Both are expected to hit high in the rankings and, eventually, fight each other for the world champion's belt. The story focuses heavily on character development—even during the matches something is learned about both fighters. Ippo has a habit of running into his opponents before matches, giving him a chance to learn more about their backgrounds and even sympathize with them. Ippo is an extremely timid and modest person who never assumes that he is strong enough. He instead draws courage from seeing the strength of his opponent and realizing that he is able to stand up to it. Ippo and his friendly rivalry with Miyata is the main draw in the early part of the series. That later changes to Ippo's path toward the Japanese Featherweight Championship and eventually the world championship. Along the way the audience is given glimpses into the other characters' pasts, motivations, relationships to others, and current boxing trials. A colorful cast of supporting characters and opponents as well as side stories concerning their paths in the boxing world rounds out the series.

Media

Manga

is written and illustrated by

. The manga has been published in

's ''shōnen'' manga anthology ''

'' since October 11, 1989. It has run in the magazine for over 30 years, and reached its 1000th chapter in December 2012. It became the 8th longest running manga series with over 1300 chapters released in Japan as of 2021. Kodansha has collected its chapters into individual ''

'' volumes. The first volume was published on February 17, 1990. As of July 15, 2022, 135 volumes have been published. In June 2021, it was announced that the series would get a digital release, for the first time in 33 years of publication, starting on July 1 of the same year.

Anime

has been adapted into an

series franchise. The first 75-episode anime television series, produced by Madhouse,

Nippon Television JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...

and VAP and directed by Satoshi Nishimura, aired on Nippon TV between October 4, 2000, and March 27, 2002. The episodes were collected into twenty-five DVDs released by VAP from March 16, 2001 to March 21, 2003. The last DVD includes a special episode which did not air in Japan, numbered 76. A television film titled '': Champion Road'' aired on April 18, 2003. An

(OVA) titled '' Mashiba vs. Kimura'' was released on September 5, 2003. A second series titled '': New Challenger'' aired on Nippon TV from January 6 to June 30, 2009. In 2009,

Rikiya Koyama is a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator currently affiliated with Haiyuza Theatre Company. He has done popular voicing roles in ''Hajime no Ippo'', ''Utawarerumono'', ''Kamen no Maid Guy'' and ''Yakuza'', and has become well known for voici ...

, the voice actor of Mamoru Takamura, revealed on his blog that a sequel to the '': New Challenger'' television series was being planned. At the end of his blog entry, he wrote, "Of course, a sequel is also being planned!!". In July 2013, it was reported in that year's 34th issue of Kodansha's ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' that a third season of would air in the fall 2013 season. The third season, titled '': Rising'', ran for 25 episodes from October 5, 2013 to March 29, 2014. '': Rising'' was streamed on ''

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and tel ...

''. In North America, the first series was licensed by

Geneon Entertainment (abbreviated as NBCUEJ) is a Japanese music, anime, and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise headquartered in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo. It is primarily involved in the production and distribution of anime within Japan. Th ...

in 2003, which released it under the name ''Fighting Spirit''. Geneon distributed ''Fighting Spirit'' on 15 DVDs with five episodes per disc. The first DVD was released on July 6, 2004 and the fifteenth released on December 19, 2006. The DVDs included English and Spanish language tracks, as well as the original Japanese. The TV film ''Champion Road'' was released on North America on January 9, 2007. There were no plans to release the OVA, ''Mashiba vs. Kimura''. Disc sales of the series did not perform well. In September 2020,

announced that they had licensed the series, including the 76 episodes, ''Champion Road'' and, for the first time in North America, the OVA ''Mashiba vs. Kimura''. The first

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...

set (episodes 1–24) was released on January 26, 2021. The second set (episodes 25–48) was released on March 30, 2021.

Music

The music for the first anime series was composed by

Tsuneo Imahori is a Japanese guitarist and composer. Life He started to play acoustic guitar aged 12, inspired by British folk music from the likes of Bert Jansch, and later the work of Frank Zappa and Andy Partridge. In 1986 he formed the band Tipographica ...

, who also did the third opening theme song. Tracks of guitars, drums, piano, horns, and combinations of the instruments were used to help accentuate the mood and action of the scenes. The soundtrack was released in Japan on two CDs, ''First KO'' and ''Final Round''. The music for the second series was composed by

Yoshihisa Hirano is a Japanese composer and arranger. He is best known for composing the scores for anime series, such as ''Death Note'', '' Hunter × Hunter (2011)'', and ''Edens Zero''. He has also made the orchestration for video games, mostly in the Final ...

. In the third series, Yoshihisa Hirano and Tsuneo Imahori are credited for the music.

Anime theme songs

;Opening theme songs #"Under Star" by Shocking Lemon (episodes 1–25) #"Inner Light" by Shocking Lemon (episodes 26–50, TV movie) #"Tumbling Dice" by

(episodes 51–76) #"Hekireki" by Last Alliance (episodes 77–102) #"Yakan Hikou" by Wasureranneyo (episodes 103–127) ;Ending theme songs #"Yuuzora no Kamihikouki" by Mori Naoya (episodes 1–25, TV movie) #"360°" by Mori Naoya (episodes 26–50, 75, OVA) #"Eternal Loop" by Saber Tiger (episodes 51–74, 76) #"8 AM" by

Coldrain are a Japanese Rock music, rock band from Nagoya, Japan, who were formed in 2007. The band combines melodic singing with screams typical of the post-hardcore genre. Although the band is Japanese, all of their songs are written in English. The l ...

(episodes 77–102) #"Buchikome!!" by Shikuramen (episodes 103–127)

Video games

There have been some video games based on the series, first released on the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

, then later the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

and

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

, and recently to

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

. Two of the games have been released in North America and in

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

territories. There was some confusion regarding the Western title ''Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit'' before its Western release. This is generally assumed to be the same game as '' 2: Victorious Road'', when actually it is the next title in the series, '' - The Fighting! All Stars''. The Japanese released ''Victorious Road'' is unique amongst the titles as it includes the option to create your own boxer and control his training, diet, weight etc. The second Western title, ''Fighting Spirit'', gives the player a choice of over 70 fighters for VS play. Each title has its own story mode which closely follows that of the manga. Ippo and Takamura have also appeared in the 2009 crossover video game '' Sunday vs Magazine: Shūketsu! Chōjō Daikessen'' as playable characters. ''Hajime no Ippo: Victorious Boxers'' was nominated for ''

The Electric Playground ''EP Daily'' (formerly ''The Electric Playground'') is a daily news television show that covers video games, movies, TV shows, comic books, collectibles and gadgets. Created and executive produced by host Victor Lucas, and his Vancouver, British ...

''s 2001 Blister Awards for "Best Console Fighting Game", and

D.I.C.E. Awards The D.I.C.E. Awards (formerly the Interactive Achievement Awards) is an award show in the video game industry started in 1998 and commonly referred to in the industry as the "video games Academy Awards, Oscar". The awards are arranged by the Ac ...

for "Best Fighting Game of the Year" nomination but lost all to

Dead or Alive 3 is a 2001 in video games, 2001 fighting game, fighting video game developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo for the Xbox (console), Xbox console as one of its launch titles. It is the third main entry in the ''Dead or Alive (franchise), Dea ...

for

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

Reception

''Hajime no Ippo'' won the 15th

in the ''shōnen'' category in 1991. The series also received a Special Award at the 43rd Kodansha Manga Award, commemorating 110 years since Kodansha's founding in 2019. On

TV Asahi JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as (also known as EX and and stylized as TV asahi), is a television station that is owned and operated by the subsidiary of certified broadcasting holding company , itself controlled by The Asahi Shimbun Compan ...

's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150.000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, ''Hajime no Ippo'' ranked #47. As of September 2008, the ''Hajime no Ippo'' manga had over 73 million copies in circulation. As of November 2019, it had over 96 million copies in circulation. As of December 2021, it had over 100 million copies in circulation. Anime Academy gave the first anime series a glowing response; all five reviewers rated it above 90%, with one referring to the series as "the cream of the crop" of the sports genre in anime, and another stating that "fighting and character development have never tangoed so well together". Gia Manry of ''Fanboy.com'' listed the series as one of their "Top Ten Underrated Manga".

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

listed '': Rising'' among the best anime series of the 2010s.

References

External links

* * * * *
''Hajime no Ippo'' anime official website at VAP
* * * {{Authority control Hajime no Ippo 1989 manga 2000 anime television series debuts 2003 anime films 2009 anime television series debuts 2013 anime television series debuts Action anime and manga Anime series based on manga Boxing in anime and manga Comedy anime and manga Discotek Media Geneon USA Kodansha manga Madhouse (company) Manga adapted into films MAPPA Nippon TV original programming Shōnen manga Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (Shōnen)